That Chinese bathhouses draw families and their children while operating simultaneously as brothels is a phenomenon found nowhere else in the world.
The old Chinese bathhouse, circa 2000
Advanced love: An essay
We are taught not to be misers with our money. But when it comes to the body, we are misers through and through.
Newsex. A dramatic farce
X-rated dramatic farce set in a sexual re-education camp in a future Liberated California Republic.
Gu Cheng, selected poems (trans. Isham Cook & Zhao Shufen)
China’s mad poet who savagely murdered his wife.
August Stramm, poems (trans. Isham Cook)
Poems like teeth grinding away grammar: Germany’s Expressionist poet who died on the front in WWI.
Isham Cook, poems 1986-88
Bizarre experiments in poetry while under the influence of cannabis.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 1: New Gary, IN
The protagonist discovers he’s a convicted pedophile incarcerated in the city-wide concentration camp of former Gary, Indiana.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 2: Xinluoma
The protagonist finds himself enslaved in a full-scale replica of Ancient Rome in China.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 3: Zigaago
The protagonist finds himself enslaved in a Cantonese-speaking Chicago 100 years in the future.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 4: Chicago
A bullet removed from the protagonist’s brain is replaced with a pedophile-tracking nanochip.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 5: Xinluoma
The protagonist slave gets a tour of China’s Ancient Rome and trains in massaging its female patrons.
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel. Ch. 6: Gwongzau
The condemned protagonist is fattened up during the ocean crossing to Canton.
The persistent. A short story
What happens when one gets sexually involved with women of the obsessive variety.
The exact unknown. A short story
A casual affair with a student engenders inexplicable difficulties.
The apology. A short story
Communication problems at a gift shop spiral out of control.
ISHAM COOK 